nvidia-settings makes one of my dual monitors grey and useless, disables network

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, Precise Pangolin, with a PNY GTS 250 1GB video card and a monitor plugged into each of the DVI ports. I'm using the proprietary drivers (post-release updates).

If I set anything to do with Separate X Screens up in nvidia-settings (and write it to xorg.conf and reboot), my second monitor has a grey background, no menu bar, no ability to have a window on it, the second monitor doesn't get picked up in a screneshot, and if I move my mouse cursor to it it's an ugly black X. Plus, my network is unable to connect to anything.

If I subsequently delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf and reboot, everything goes back to working, albeit with a single monitor activated.

If I set anything to do with TwinView up in nvidia-settings, my second monitor starts working, but it isn't seen as a second monitor by Ubuntu, so I can't apply color calibration to it separately. Plus, my mouse gets "caught" between the monitors every time I try to move my cursor between the two.

What gives? If it helps, this is the xorg.conf that nvidia-settings generates for Separate X Screens.

Solution

After such a struggle with settings here and settings this with the Nvidia graphics GUI I clicked on dash, typed in driver, selected additional driver. Here you should see 2 options after opening addition drivers

NVIDIA accelerated graphics dirver (version current)[Recommended] NVIDIA accelerated graphics dirver (post-release updates)(version current-updates)

I had 1 selected as this is how I installed my Nvidia driver initially (Had trouble downloading directly from the site and installing it). This then broke and after a struggle as mentioned above I selected 2 and clicked on activate, restarted my machine and boom. Up and working np. Here is my xorg.conf file output

Edit: Oh and how to get rid of the mouse getting stuck between the 2 screens:

1. Dash - Displays
2. Sticky Edges - Slide to off (this is on by default)

Comments

[Seth Hikari]

Well only a fix for your mouse getting stuck between the monitors is to turn off stick edges in display settings

[Kerrick]

Thanks for that, I appreciate it--but the larger problem of TwinView causing Display Settings seeing one long monitor instead of two individual monitors remains. I still can't apply color calibration independently unless Ubuntu sees two monitors.

[Seth Hikari]

Yes also working on this problem because separate X screens do not work. and Unity does not seem to be in 3D with Twin view.

[Alex]

I have same problem except i downloaded the 295.53 driver from nvidia's site. and the display manager has one screen called laptop. im not on a laptop. the nvidia settings knows the monitors. how do we get dual monitors to work? i had display think both monitors was one big one. that the only way i could of had dual monitor till i install this driver.

[Kerrick]

You realize this is Ask Ubuntu, right?

[keepitsimpleengineer]

Yes, and not likely to change either. However this is how you get what used to be available in prior releases, and not (yet) available in current release.